Two SEI Presentations: "New Hires Using Experienced Process Guidance" and "Software Quality Assurance: Friend or Foe?"

May 2, 2002

Location: Akerman Hall 313

Abstract:

New Hires Using Experienced Process Guidance - As this year's conference theme states, "experienced process guidance" DOES equal success. How do you transfer your company's process experience to your new employees? One technique used to expedite the transfer process in iSeries development at IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, is a series of short education sessions taught by company subject matter experts. The objectives are to provide our new hires with an experience-based process education and to orient them to our quality and process values and culture. Our new hire education model is now being used by other divisions within the IBM Corporation. In this presentation the authors will share their objectives, structure, strategies, and overall approach to new hire education sessions. Development of the content will be discussed and the authors will present an overview of the actual content that was used at IBM Rochester, which includes internal process information as well as industry practices. New hire education sessions are ongoing at Rochester. The authors will present lessons learned and plans for continued improvement. Attendees should obtain the information necessary to set up a similar program within their company, to expedite the transfer of process experience and knowledge to their newest skill and talent base.

Software Quality Assurance: Friend or Foe? - One of the obstacles to effectively establishing Capability Maturity Model (CMM)-compliant software quality assurance (SQA) organizations is the perception that they are the "process police." This misperception leaves a SQA organization as a group to be feared or at least avoided, rather than regarded as part of the software team ensuring consistent, high-quality output. This presentation will cover practical organizational and interpersonal strategies for implementing a supportive rather than combative software quality assurance process and organization. These strategies will help organizations develop better synergy and cooperation between software development and software quality assurance groups. This results in stronger, more flexible, better integrated, and more compatible product and process quality assurance organizations. The presentation includes example situations and brief role-playing exercises to demonstrate how interpersonal (i.e. "soft") skills can significantly improve the acceptance of SQA and its consequent effectiveness in a maturing software development organization. The intent of this presentation is to motivate and support the development of complementary software quality assurance groups, easing one of the more difficult activities at Level 2.

About the Speakers:

Phil Einspahr is an advisory software engineer working for IBM's iSeries development organization in Rochester, MN. He graduated from Luther College in 1979 with degrees in Computer Science and Physics and began his DP career as an IBM customer in the manufacturing sector. He joined IBM in 1980 as a field engineer. Since 1982 he's had assignments in service competitive analysis, hardware simulation and development application administration, migration, planning and architecture. He leads the IBM iSeries SEPG and is a member of Twin SPIN in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.

Diane Manlove is a software quality engineer for IBM in Rochester, MN. Her responsibilities include the management of release quality during product development, system quality improvement, and product quality trend analysis and projections. Manlove is certified by the Project Management Institute as a Project Management Professional and by the American Society for Quality as a Software Quality Engineer, a Quality Manager, and a Reliability Engineer. She holds a Master's degree in Reliability and an undergraduate degree in Engineering. Manlove has been employed by IBM since 1984.

Pat Wegerson is the SEPG chairperson and a Staff Systems Software Engineer at FSI International, Inc. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mr. Wegerson champions software process improvement (SPI) at FSI and leads the Level 2 effort. He performs software process assessment, development, and application, as well as SPI steering committee duties.  His work includes project management, embedded real-time systems, automation engineering, and standards. Mr. Wegerson has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree and an MS in Software Engineering. He is a member of IEEE, ASQ, and an original member of TwinSPIN. He has presented at 2 SEPG conferences and at other professional forums.